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What Is Overtraining?

By Ashley Crossman

For Active.com

What is Overtraining Syndrome?

Overtraining syndrome is common in nearly every sport and fitness activity. Overtraining happens when an athlete performs more training than his or her body can recover from, to the point where performance declines.

Many highly motivated runners, including recreational runners, are obsessed with training and afraid to rest. They believe that the harder they train, the faster they'll run, despite evidence to the contrary. Thus, many runners attempt to do more work than they can physically tolerate and their bodies can't fully recover from the standard two to three days of rest. Many runners don't even know they're overtrained until they reach the chronic phase when they grind to a halt and need several weeks of rest to recover.

Causes of Overtraining

The most common causes of overtraining are quick increases in frequency, intensity, or duration of training sessions, or a combination without the necessary recovery. Runners who increase the frequency of their interval training sessions, runners who are simply running too many races, and runners who suddenly increased mileage too quickly are at risk for experiencing signs and symptoms of overtraining.

How to Identify and Diagnose Overtraining

It is difficult to identify and diagnose overtraining because many runners consider excessive ongoing fatigue to be a normal part of training. There is also no simple test such as a blood test or clinical diagnosis to identify overtraining. And it is very individualized, so one runner might exhibit different symptoms than another runner. The best we can do is recognize the general symptoms earlier, then rest and recover.

Symptoms of Overtraining

Overtraining is not simply a physical phenomenon; it also has mental effects on the runner as well. Systems affected by overtraining include the musculoskeletal, immune, endocrine, cardiovascular, nervous, and hormonal systems.

Physiological symptoms of overtraining include:

Muscle/joint tenderness

Tiredness

Tightness

Decreased performance

Increased rate of overuse injuries

Insomnia/disturbed sleep patterns

Body weight loss

Nausea

Decreased appetite

Allergic reactions

Elevated heart rate and blood pressure

Head colds/persistent upper respiratory tract infections

Training fatigue/lethargy

Changes in menstrual patterns

Decreased coordination

Decreased heart rate at a given level of running intensity (by about five beats/minute)

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About the Author

Ashley Crossman

Ashley Crossman is a certified RRCA running coach and ACE personal trainer. She owns her own coaching business, She Runs Strong, and is the running coach for two charity training teams in Phoenix, Arizona: the MS Rockstars (benefiting the Multiple Sclerosis Society) and SoleMates (benefiting Girls on the Run Serving Maricopa and Pinal Counties). She has completed seven marathons and numerous half-marathons and smaller races.

Ashley Crossman is a certified RRCA running coach and ACE personal trainer. She owns her own coaching business, She Runs Strong, and is the running coach for two charity training teams in Phoenix, Arizona: the MS Rockstars (benefiting the Multiple Sclerosis Society) and SoleMates (benefiting Girls on the Run Serving Maricopa and Pinal Counties). She has completed seven marathons and numerous half-marathons and smaller races.

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